$#!& Happens

The failure at the Oscars demonstrates a good point to remember: $#!& Happens. My take is that after much analysis, we will find that there were duplicate stacks of envelopes on both sides of the stage, and the wrong envelope was given to the presenters (Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway). Clearly, Mr. Beatty was confused and hoping someone would notice the problem and correct it. Unfortunately, it took a little longer.

It's interesting to note that there is a protocol for such things, and in an article from 2015, that protocol is outlined. It's also interesting to see that this has, indeed, happened before, albeit not for the "top" award.

The bottom line is that a mistake was made, it was spotted, it was corrected. It was embarrassing, but what in life isn't? People will be held accountable, apologies will be made, and everyone handled it with as much poise and grace as possible. Nobody died. I say Bravo.

About the author

Christopher Ambler is a Principal Architect at GoDaddy who writes sleek, performant, low-overhead Java and Scala code. In his copious spare time he can be found playing poker or listening to progressive music not in 4/4 time. He recently relocated to sunny California from Seattle.